These gold medalists displayed not only superior skill and finesse at their game of choice, but had the endurance and flexibility to beat a series of tough opponents.  It’s this kind of consistent excellence that separates gold medalists from everyone else.

Congratulations to all of you, and to everyone who stepped up for their chance to go for the gold.

WC3 PC Europe - FuRy[SWE]
WC3 PC North and Central America - madisonstreet
TMNF PC North and Central America - G2_Wolf
TMNF PC Europe - dignitas.skyward
FIFA PC Europe - Zaraza1
NHL 08 North and Central America Xbox 360 - Rubthesmurf
C&C3 Kane’s Wrath PC Europe - knolz
Starcraft PC North and Central America - BroL1
CS PC Europe - THE SKURVELS
SC PC Europe - LML
NBA Live 08 North America PS3 - hedidme
NBA Live 08 Europe PC - pajarskiukas
WC3 DoTa PC North and Central America - Mug N Mouse
TMNF PC Asia and Oceania - waffle time
NBA Live 08 PC North and Central America - KiFireLedius
CNC3 North and Central America PC - KhuFu_OwNz
WC3 DoTa PC Europe - D-Link PGS
NHL 08 PC North and Central America - KiFireLedius
FIFA PC South America - maryfer
NHL 08 PC Europe - Aphorism
FIFA PC North and Central America - caleb1984

European Counter-Strike 1.6 is complete, and The Skurvels have taken gold after a win over esuba.HAL3000.cs1.6. Congrats to the Polish powerhouse!

In North American of Duty 4 (PS3), meanwhile, DeathB4Dishonor dishonored the memory of Teflon Hearts and took gold! They’re followed by Xbox 360 NA counterparts Team OMG, who defeated Hellz Remedy. Multi-gaming team LowLandLions KO’d TeamDruidz in PC European CoD4. And last, but most certainly not least, #1 seed Ready to Kill Clan completed a rout of the South American PC bracket with a win over Nex Impetus.

On the RTS side of things, KhuFu_Ownz won the North American C&C3:Kane’s Wrath bracket, defeating KiFireLedius. [x17]Pill dropped ~FireFly~ on his head 3-0 to win the Asia/Oceania C&C3:KW bracket, and knolz sealed victory in Europe by topping golfplayer.

Next up: StarCraft: Brood War. This classic title’s North American bracket was overrun by Brol1’s Zerg swarm. LML did the same to the European SC:BW bracket.

In Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne’s NA final, we see a familiar face: KiFireLedius strikes again! Unfortunately, he didn’t strike fast enough, as madisonstreet won the bracket. Still, props to KiFire for playing in another bracket final. The Asia/Oceanic gold medal belongs to vikyzhang, who defeated kumazo-. This was a small bracket, but important nonetheless.

European WC3, on the other hand, was a huge bracket with participants like PGS’ Paladyn and dmZfederal, who absolutely crushed the ladders under the weight of their win records. Despite the apparent ladder domination, it was FuRy[SWE] who came out ahead in the bracket, defeating iesbly4g 2-1 to take gold!

 South American DoTA saw Brazilian DoTA Players beat Bolivia, while Europe’s DoTA final was won by D-Link PGS.

Now, a couple of sports titles to whet your appetites! North America’s NHL 08 PS3 bracket was won, rightly, by a Canadian. Hats off to Trevor-1608 for showing American cokebust how it’s done. Rubthesmurf won the NA 360 final. Finally, the PC North American NHL 08 gold belongs to…KiFireLedius. Not content with silver  in two other brackets, KiFire decided to take home gold in this game.

In NBA Live 08’s NA PS3 bracket, hedidme dropped OHYEAH33 2-1, while 360 NA counterpart GET UR HANDS UP defeated the living legend Livinlegen07. KiFireLedius (do you have carpal tunnel yet?) won the PC NA bracket. Asia’s default-ridden bracket was won by HLM3 and Lithuanian legend pajarskukias won the European side.

In Futbol–I mean, FIFA–caleb1984 took home gold after a forfeit win over…KiFireLedius. maryfer conquered South America with a win over franklinsoto, and dragua smashed Zaraza1 in Europe.

And for the baseball fans, rayzordog defeated THIRST324 in the North American MLB 08: The Show final. Congrats!

Finally, we come to the racing games. Burnout Paradise’s North American final saw Zsta2k5 defeat 4 Glory. In Trackmania Nations Forever, G2_Wolf unsurprisingly crowned himself North American champ, while alexsf1801 won the South American bracket. waffle time won Asia, and dignitas.skyward took home gold in Europe.

Remember that not all of the brackets are resolved, so there are more medalist reports to come soon! Congrats to all the winners!

For the first part of the DG bracket update, hit this Wire post.

Heated battles in the Digital Games brackets continue, and some of the best players in each game are getting ready for a major slugfest.

In the FIFA European regional bracket, dragua has already advanced to the third round after a victory over Winzzz.  He’ll play the winner of droter vs. icantplaygood. beLu finds himself in the same position, awaiting the victor of Zaraza1 and pavjke.

In South American FIFA, the field has been whittled down to four players!  Teruliro will battle franklinsoto for a chance at supremacy, while maryfer faces off against pclloh in the bottom portion of the bracket. Who will reign supreme in South America?

Lastly, in North American FIFA, only three remain. caleb1984 is in the final already, and awaits the winner of KiFireLedius and Mojo.ca.

Next up: Warcraft III.  Like other brackets North American WC3 bracket already has players in the fourth round. KiFireLedius (there he is again) and Mantraa are going head to head for a spot in the regional final! And yes, Mantraa, we still care about WC3…it just wasn’t in the last update due to time constraints. Round 3’s final matches, AriS vs madisonstreet and Cubelogger vs. Arkridge, still await their final conclusion.

South America’s highly competitive WC3 bracket is also into its third round. Here are the matches: [-SnaKe-] vs. UpS, Thyton vs. tufik, tuti- vs. franklinsoto, and H20.Stan vs. LagWizard. In Asia, four contenders are left. Vikyzhang will duel punkstar and nikiliu is looking to give kumazo- the boot.

Europe, the home of some of WC3’s powerhouses, has already progressed to the fourth round. FuRy[SWE] is face to face with Gerila and iesbly4eg will attempt to outmicro Dutch star RotterdaM.

Last, but certainly not least, Goal and finalelement have reached the final of the Middle East/African bracket!

Meanwhile, in baseball territory, the North American MLB: The Show bracket has progressed to its second round. rayzordog will do battle with PILLSBURYDOEBOY. THIRST324 and zllehs round out the bracket.

Stay tuned for more results as we get them!

In Counter-Strike: 1.6 Europe, first-seeded emulate look to drop #16 peXg.young.cs, while #2 neP face off against #15 LowLandLions.cs. emulate are already world champions in a different tournament, so it should come as no surprise that they are heavily favored to have their way with this bracket. We will see, however, if a lower seed can upset them.

The North American Call of Duty 4 PS3  bracket sees #1 ONEARMYONELIFE matched against DeathB4Dishonor, while #2 Fear is Better Than Respect will fight#15 Hippo Attack force. I haven’t run into any idle speculation about who is best in this segment of the competition, so the field seems open to all! Meanwhile, the European PC CoD4 bracket has several sponsored pro teams battling it out. #1 4Kings, the pride of the U.K., go head to head with upstart pro team LowLandLions. #12 D-Link PGS.COD4 and #3 BenQ DELTAeSPORTS.COM are also in the mix.

Last, but most certainly not least, the all-Brazil South American CoD4 PC bracket is in its second round after most teams got byes in the first round. #16 All 4 Nothing did top #17 Fusion to advance to round two, however.

The same is occurring in the C&C3: Kane’s Wrath North American bracket. It’s much different, however, in Europe. knolz has already advanced to the third round of the bracket!

Sportswise, Cornhusker has also made it into the third round of the North American NHL 08 360 bracket after an apparent forfeit victory over tuckerNash. #1 seed XFacto88 has yet to face off with #16 Rubthesmurf (great name), however.

In the RTS world, most of the higher seeds advanced out of round one of the StarCraft: Brood War 1v1 North American bracket, with the exception of a couple of matches.

Many more exciting matches are set for play in the Digital Games, so stay tuned for more news!

We won’t be able to extend the brackets again, so if you do not play your match by Saturday you will be forfeited out of the competition.

If you have played a first round match, please re-report the results, as some of the results were erased in the process of extending the round.

Click here to play now!

World Golf Tour features realistic wind simulation and true to life replication of the world’s best golf courses.

Best of all, WGT keeps track of your progress on a global leaderboard. This allows players to one up their friends without having to leave their homes.

If you’re like most people and can’t partake in a real life world golf tour, hit up World Golf Tour to get started.

The regional brackets pit national medalists against one another in a fight to the death to determine who is best in the region. In addition, if you are a participant in the Digital Games brackets and want to be featured in a new video show GGL is developing, please save your demos and replays (where applicable)!

GGL rules stipulate that all replays should be saved for dispute purposes regardless, but there could be some very interesting coverage opportunities for you and your team in the future, so please save replays!

Good luck to all competitors!

Visit the Digital Games news post to see a long-format list of the medalists.

Congrats to all the winners and we’ll see you in the bracket portion of the tournament!

While the article goes to some length to describe O’Day’s lack of athleticism (as if it matters when it comes to computer games), it ends on a fairly positive tone.

Check out the article at PC World.

GGL: Please tell us your full name, age and occupation.
Dan Stemkoski / 25 / aspiring SC commentator/player.

GGL: How long have you been playing SC?
9 or 10 years.

GGL: What was your impetus for entering the Digital Games StarCraft competition?
I like to support any StarCraft tournaments/ladders that I can.

GGL: Who is your most dangerous opponent so far and why?
My teammate Machine[Media]. He is a really really good zerg player and he’s beaten me a few times on the ladder.

GGL: With respect to strategies, could you give us a general overview of how the game has changed since you started playing?
The game is infinitely different since I started playing. I started way back a little bit after the game came out when no one had any idea what was going on. It has evolved into by far the hardest, most competitive and unforgiving game ever. Gone are the days of just having strategies that worked. Now you have to be doing hundreds of things per minute with nearly flawless strategy/macro/micro or you will get run over.

GGL: Is there a foreigner (non-Korean) who can hold a candle to the best Korean players right now?
No.

GGL: What are your thoughts on Starcraft 2?
I’m really excited about SC2 coming out. We SC1 die hard fans have waited a long time for a chance to actually be able to make money playing this game.

GGL: Will a foreigner be able to reign supreme in SC2? Why or why not?
Yes. At first many of the top players will be foreigners. The Koreans won’t switch over entirely right away I think. Regardless of that, the vast majority of Korean SC players are just mindless drones who copy the best pro gamers. The mindless drones absolutely will suck at SC2 until it is defined enough that they can mindlessly copy again. Foreigners generally don’t copy and thus will be able to compete for a long time in the game.

GGL: Do you still have pro gaming aspirations or just play for fun these days?
Yes I still aspire to greater things in SC1. We do get at least some tournaments which are important and have nice prizes (WCG / Teamliquid Starleague).

GGL: Who is the best non-Korean player right now?
Impossible to say.

GGL: Will Brood War die with the release of SC2?
The competitive foreigner SC1 scene will die instantly when SC2 comes out. As for Korea, I imagine it will take a bit longer for them to switch over completely.

Any shoutouts?
HI MACHINE!!!!!!!